ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360 AIO

A cooler too hot to handle

WHEN YOU THINK about creating a new build, you may naturally concentrate your efforts on the most interesting parts, such as the processor or graphics card. While these are two of the most important components for performance, it’s no good running a zippy PC if it heats your case up like an oven. An AIO cooler is vital to keep everything running smoothly and temperatures as low as possible whilst maintaining those performance speeds.

The ROG Ryujin II 369 AIO is ASUS’s flagship cooler designed to keep even the hottest performing machines running nice and cool. If you are tight on space, there is also a smaller 240mm version. It's an impressive component, but should it become a part of your rig?

Design-wise, this is a sweet-looking AIO cooler. Beginning with the star of the show, the CPU pump head features an LCD panel, but not just any old panel— this happens to be the largest LCD on any AIO cooler on the market. Though it could be seen as a little gimmicky, this is ASUS's flagship model so naturally, it features all the bells and whistles. So what can you use this panel for?

First, it can be used as a showpiece item to make your rig stand out. The screen is customizable with some pretty neat uploadable images and animations, though more practical uses include system monitoring. It is connected through ASUS’s Armoury Crate application and can display temperatures, voltages, frequencies, or fan speeds. This is all pretty crucial information and it’s handy to just glance over at your case and make sure everything is running smoothly.

The screen can also display similar data but from AIDA64. This AIO comes with a one-year subscription to the AIDA64 Extreme software, one of the best industry-leading programs for system information.

That’s not quite it for the CPU pump, though. It has another nifty trick up its sleeve. Embedded in the pump housing behind the LCD screen is a hidden 60mm fan, ensuring there is more than enough airflow to the CPU socket. Besides this fan, ROG Ryujin II 360 comes with three Noctua Industrial PPC-2000 PWM radiator fans. These are top-tier fans costing around $30 a piece, so it’s good to see that the flagship model from ASUS has these included.

FAN CULTURE

Also included in the box is a fan controller hub, which is a nice addition. This features four RGB ports and four fan ports. Unusually, they aren’t split traditionally, with one side for RGB and the other for fans. Instead, one side has a fan port with three RGB ports, and the other side has three fan ports with one RGB port. We’re nitpicking here, but we found it a little odd. Regardless, at least they included this controller in the box.

Finally, we have the radiator which, as the name implies, is a pretty large 360mm rad. If you are using this with a demanding system, this is a great size to keep things nice and regulated. Tested with our Intel i9-12900K CPU and an ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080, it handled everything we threw at it with plenty of headroom for comfortable overclocking potential. It ran quietly in our large Corsair 7000D Airflow case, even under some stressful gaming conditions. We achieved temps of between 104°F and 122°F (40-50°C) which we were happy with considering the quiet fan noise.

The question of whether you should buy one depends if your case is large enough to fit this in comfortably and your rig requires as much cooling as possible. If you’re rocking some of the latest Intel or AMD CPUs with a hefty GPU, this will make an awesome addition to your system to keep things under control.

On the other hand, it could be overkill for your PC. If you have a less demanding system that could be kept cool by a smaller AIO then as awesome as it is, we can’t recommend spending over $300 on this cooler—unless you think it's worth adding to your setup for that gorgeous screen alone. Overall, it’s a great AIO that can handle demanding competitive gameplay and productivity-based tasks with some pretty neat features thrown into the mix too. –SAM LEWIS

VERDICT 9 ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360 AIO

ICE COLD Largest AIO LCD display; embedded 60mm CPU fan; Noctua fans.

IN HOT WATER Bulky CPU block; pricey. $ 310.00, www. asus.com